Well let me ask you this about Davos. What do you imagine the price of a hotel room is in Davos? I'll help you out a little. There are essentially three prices: Expensive, Really Expensive, and Holy Shit! Now think about how many delegates there are attending. Add in the secretaries, assistants, personal assistants, drivers, and other bootlickers who've gone along with each of the delegates. Who do you think is picking up the tab for them?

Now that you’ve written all that down, on the other half of the balance sheet, put down (in whatever currency you’re comfortable with), exactly how much all this expense has netted you, personally? 

Congratulations! You’re one of the people paying for this annual excuse for the delegates to ski and get fatter and drunker to their heart’s content.  Let me help you again.  Roughly 98% of you can write down a big fat zero.And yet all you Joes and Josies around the world pay for this confabulation, year after exorbitant year, with pretty much the same result:  More jobs shipped out of the country; those remaining getting crappy, or no, pay raises; cost of living spiraling up, out of control; the cheapest gas at $3.50 a gallon.  Are these the results we want?  Doesn’t matter.  What matters is this: It’s what we’re paying for. 

Well, folks, I repeat, the record execs took their lessons from the pols, so they were doing pretty much the same excesses, unquestioned by everybody.  At least until about ten years ago.  Since then, these execs have had to tighten their belts somewhat.  But we still see the entertainers, the singers and musicians driving cars with fancy hubcaps, one of which costs more than what a lot of you out there reading this might make in a week or a month.  Now who do you think is paying for it?  You can all put down the same two-letter answer: 

“M-E.”

Let’s do the same balancing act with the currency for the record industry. 

One side is all the designer dresses, four-pound gold chains, Escalades and their hubcaps, and so on.  And let’s not even add in all the illegal purchases and rentals, such as drugs, guns and hos (or is that hoes?). 

On the other side, write down how many minutes of entertainment you get.  Factor in the price of a CD or DVD, whichever you usually buy.  I don’t have to tell you what else to write down on either side of the ledger.  Simply look at any rock/rap/pop star’s videos and you’ll see exactly where your hard-earned shekels are going.  Then think about how many times you had to say, “Want fries with that?” to earn that figure.  Are they following in the footsteps of our politicians and big business leaders?  You can safely stake your life on it.

But what we do we see happening now?